This session physically and energetically, we're working with the figure 8 or infinity breath (see Donna Farhi & Leila Stuart, Pathways To A Centered Body), and with stabilizing the spine and torso. Philosophically, we're returning to an old favourite, the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, believed to be from the 7th or 8th C. It is written as a conversation between a husband (the essence of all that is), and a wife (the creative force from which all manifestations arise) about the nature of reality. We'll be working in class from Lorin Roche's interpretation, The Radiance Sutras (2014), and using Jai Deva Singh's translation for reference.

This week's reading is the first of 112 practices that make up the body of the text - attending to the spaces at the ends of the breath, where the throb of life rests for a fraction of a moment before the next aspect of the breath begins...

Beloved, your questions require answers that come through direct living experience. The way of experience begins with a breath, such as the breath you are breathing right now. Awakening into luminous reality may dawn in the momentary throb between any two breaths. Exhaling, breath is released and flows out. There is a pulse as it turns to flow in; in that turn you are empty. Enter that emptiness as the source of all life. Inhaling, breath flows in, filling, nourishing. Just as it turns to flow out there is a flash of pure joy - life is renewed.

BWelcome to 2018 everyone! Take a moment to sense yourself right now, just as you are, and take a few conscious breaths, beginning to cultivate witness awareness - that aspect of you that is always in the background - holding what has been and is unfolding with compassion and curiosity. Without overthinking or interpreting, become aware of the felt sense of your past year - acknowledging the truth of how it was, and then letting it go a little with your out-breath as you root yourself into the present and open yourself to moving forward.

We'll start the year where we finished, with Wyatt Townley's The Breathing Field:

Between each vertebra is the through line of your life's story, where the setting sun has burned all colours into the cord. Step over. Put on the dark shirt of stars. A full moon rises over the breathing field, seeps into the clover and the brown lace of its roots where insects are resting their legs. Take in the view. So much is still to be seen. Get back behind your back, behind what is behind you.

Happy exploring!

Author

Misha Butot RCSW, ERYT 500 is a longtime clinical social worker and senior yoga teacher living in Victoria, BC